The Advent of HD (High Definition) has brought the spotlight on enhanced resolution and quality of the Video and Audio components of a broadcast signal or Audio Video Stream.
When it comes to Audio quality an important element is the intricate tapestry of sounds that accompanies the intensity and emotion of key impact related events, hereinafter impact events, perceived in the Visual. These sounds, referred to hereinafter as event sounds, are typically added from a sound effects library as part of the post production process for movies and other non-live media productions. In live production such as sporting events, an attempt is made to capture event sounds for key impact events (e.g., a football player kicking a ball), using microphones.
Ensuring the right mixing volume for the event sound is of great importance. Unlike ambience sounds which reflect the general ambience, event sounds serve to accentuate the audio-visual experience of impact events as seen in the visual and must be in close harmony with the visual dynamics of the impact event. This is therefore a significant challenge on two counts. Firstly, it is desirable that the volume must be harmonious with the visual proximity of the perceived impact event. Secondly, one has to account for background audio accompanying the impact event which can be present at varying loudness levels.
Current techniques for estimating the right mixing volume for event sounds is based on a manual mix and match approach which is cumbersome, time consuming and relies heavily on human expertise. The problem is exacerbated for live productions where, unlike in the case of post productions (e.g. Movies), the estimation of mixing volume for event sounds has to be instantaneous.
The instant invention therefore proposes a system and method to overcome the above-mentioned problems.